by Ray Banks
You hit me, I hit you. You fuck up a man's dreams, I'll fuck you up.
One more punch, one more wet thump against Mo's face and my hand hurts more than I can take. I stand up, use my good hand to steady myself. Let Mo drop to the carpet, watch him curl slowly, his hands cupped over his face. His knees come up to his stomach as he rolls onto his side, this low growling, crying noise escaping him.
I can't move my right hand. Hold it up in a frozen semi-closed fist. I've broken a finger, one of my knuckles. I can't work out which.
Look across at Rossie. He's stuck to the spot. Wants to do something. Thinks maybe he needs the word from Mo. He's not going to get any word. Not unless his sic command is a liquid moan.
“Keep your hands to yourself, Rossie-mate,” I say.
Rossie takes a moment to think it over, then removes his empty hand from his jacket. I didn't think it would work. But being covered in someone else's blood gives a guy authority, it seems. And maybe Rossie and Baz agree with me, that Mo's been cruising for a full-on hiding for a while now.
I turn my attention back to the shaking figure on the carpet.
“Listen to me, Mo.” I aim my foot at his cupped hands, kick them apart. His face is slick with blood, his eyes shining bright blue and scared. “You look at me, and you listen to me, mate. Because this is the last time I'm going to say this. You stay away from Paulo's club. Stay the fuck away. This isn't a friendly warning like the last time, this is a fuckin' promise. Because I see you anywhere near Paulo, near the lads that go to his place, near the club, near me, I'm going kill you on sight.”
I kick him in the side, feel something snap. Bring my heel down on the broken rib.
“You hear that alright, Mo? I'm going to kill you. I’ll beat you to death or I'll stab you with a fuckin' knife. Or see if I can get a gun, I'll empty the fuckin' thing in your skull. I will murder you. Don't get any notions otherwise. Your time, you scally fuckin' cunt, is over. You get that? You hearing me alright?”
Mo opens his mouth, his teeth pink. Can't tell if it's a grimace or a grin. I swing my foot at it, anyway, snap his head back. He lies there. Still breathing. For now.
Then I take a few steps back, keep an eye on Baz and Rossie, make sure they don't do anything daft.
And I'm out the door, my right hand burning.
42
I've fucked my hand. Thinking that all the way back to my flat, my left hand on the steering wheel, but I can't grip with my right; the fingers have frozen into a blood-spattered claw. I rest my wrist on the wheel, feel the throb travel from my knuckles up to my elbow. Use my wrist to keep the steering wheel in position as I wrestle with my prescription, can't get the bottle open. I end up throwing the pills to one side, the brown bottle bouncing into the crack of the passenger seat.
There are things you don't fucking do. What Mo did, you don't do. Probably a laugh to him and his mates, but robbing a man of his dreams isn't something that cracks my face. Paulo's the good guy. He's the guy in the white hat. Might've been sullied at one point, sure as fuck looking grey now, but at one time that hat was pristine.
I pull into the car park, struggle with my bag and the pills and the car door and my flat keys, finally manage to juggle them and get into the block. Up the stairs, my front door key and bag in my left hand. I get into the flat, drop the bag, dump the keys on the table by the door.
Home sweet home. And it's a tip. I realise I've left the telly on. It's muted, and the evening news is on. The presenters wear court clothes. If you look close enough, you can see the dandruff. Grab a towel from the bathroom, hack some ice from the overfrosted freezer and make a cold bandage, try to take down some of the swelling.
It won't work. I know my hand's broken. Went too hard into Mo.
Fuck that, I should've killed him.
Like I should've killed Nelson.
No, I did kill Nelson.
I bring a bottle of vodka back into the living room, sit on the couch and put the bottle on the coffee table. Wrestle with my pills again, finally manage to pop the lid and shake a couple into my mouth, wash them down with a swallow of vodka.
It'll take a while for the pills to kick in. Until then, my hand throbs out a beat.
I need to get to a hospital.
But not yet. First I need to sit. Drink. Get my head muddied.
I press the bridge of my nose with my left hand, catch a whiff of myself. Plane sweat again, damp clothes, Mo's blood. I pull myself off the couch. I need to get cleaned up. I bring the vodka with me into the bathroom. Twist the cold water tap and take off the towel. My knuckles are turning black. I run the cold water over my right hand as long as I can bear it, then replace the towel.
Bony bastard broke my fucking hand. I should've stayed away from Mo in the first place. I should've have talked to him. It might have been Mo and Rossie and Baz with the Thunderbird bottle and rag wicks, but I set the flame.
You don't reason with a pillhead psycho. You don't try. You do what I just did — hit him as hard as you can and run the other way. And you hope you hit him hard enough that the battle's done and so's the fucking war. Hope you put enough force into those blows to make 'em count, put him down and keep him down.
I reach for the vodka. It burns my lips, but the pills are working now.
Mo's not going to give up. If he's got any brains, he'll leave it, but Mo Tiernan doesn't have any brains. If he had brains, he wouldn't have pulled the burn in the first place. Must've known that would get back to me sooner or later.
And why didn't Paulo call the police?
Because he needs to fight his own battles.
When I'm finished, I reach for the towel, catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror above the basin. The glimpse turns into a full vacant stare. Blood spots all over my face. A missing earlobe.
Battle on. That's what they say.
I rub the towel over my face, watch the blood smear in the mirror.
Yeah, you battle on.
I grab my mobile from the living room, walk over to the window and see the rain's turned from drizzle to downpour.
Punch in a number and wait.
I'll drive myself to the hospital in a minute. One more thing to do.
“Don? It's Cal. You still need me to do that eviction job for you?”
###
No More Heroes by Ray Banks
Set against a backdrop of sweltering heat and extreme racial tensions, the third novel in the Cal Innes series sees Cal become Manchester's most unlikely hero.
Available Nov 2012!
Also by Ray Banks
Novels
Dead Money
Wolf Tickets
Matador
The Cal Innes Quartet
Saturday’s Child
Donkey Punch
No More Heroes
Beast of Burden
Novellas
Gun
California
Short stories
Dirty Work: The Collected Cal Innes Stories
Wrong ’Em, Boyo
Don’t Miss Out
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Table of Contents
LETTER FROM AMERICA
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
A BIBLE AND A GUN
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
A SATISFIED MIND
31
&nbs
p; 32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
No More Heroes by Ray Banks
Also by Ray Banks
Don’t Miss Out